January 1936

Across the Editor's Desk

MANY of you who read this will see your dreams of a better home realized in 1936. General business improvement, better home-loan facilities, more efficient building methods-- all these will help you to bring into actual form and sub-stance the glamorous hopes and visions of many years, and your family will be made more comfortable and happy.

Recompense

THE Diary OF A PLAIN DIRT GARDENER

Dear Editor: I haven't heard from you yet as to whether or not you want me to write this DOAPDG for you another year. But I've done it for so many years now that I'd just be lost not doing it. And maybe your readers have somehow become used to it and the magazine wouldn't seem right without it. I hope so.

IT'S News TO ME!

"COME ALONG," say I to Nick, on a winter Sunday afternoon, "let's go outdoors and make snowballs!" Nick improves the suggestion-- he brings along a camera.

IVORY FLAKES

A California Sunshine House in Beverly Hills

A HOUSE which has been the subject of time and thought by its owners, from the first rough plan on paper to the last detail of its furnishings, nearly always shows a certain consistency and character. Perhaps the outstanding feature of this lovely California home is its unusual suitability to the tastes and needs of its owners. The architects, Gable and Wyant, didn't follow any one type of architectural style, and it's not a large house according to the actual amount of floor area covered, but it has a room for every purpose and is quite definitely built around the requirements of this particular family.

Switch on Your Welcome!

NOT that America doesn't exist as whole-heartedly at night as by daylight. The trouble is that once night settles down you have to know house numbers intuitively, or prowl furtively, or rap on the wrong door and rouse righteous wrath.

Princesses in the Garden

YES, princesses do dwell in our garden! And Eskimos inhabit the vacant lot next door. Our back yard is a jungle, and our seedbed a blazing village! Does that astonish you?

"My Boy Paul"

A HUGE bunch of hothouse Ophelias arranged in a crystal bowl formed the centerpiece at a dinner party in a New York penthouse. Paul Whiteman, the famous orchestra leader, and Mrs. Whiteman were the guests of honor, and as the company adjourned to the living-room he managed to whisper to her, "I'm going to Call up Dad in the morning and remind him to plant some more roses in our yard."

Good Planting KEEPS YOUR HOME FROM BEING

AS YOU walk down a street, do some homes and yards remind you of persons of character, poise, and friend liness? I think of such homes as being well-dressed. An orderly front lawn and well-selected and proper planting have about as much to do with the ap-pearance of suburban America as the houses themselves.

Glands Those Practical Jokers

JOSEPHINE was a problem, but no one could understand why. Her parents were intelligent and devoted, and her mother was an expert in dietetics. Yet Josephine was as undernourished as an Armenian orphan. She didn't sleep, she was nervous, she had few friends, and she idled at school.

MY SON IS Underweight

FATE has a way of playing tricks on a good many of us. You've of course seen the hair specialists who are bald-headed and the dentists who have poor teeth. Well, I'm the dietitian with a son who's underweight!

4 C's FOR YOUR BEDROOM

DOWNSTAIRS I hear the radio doing its best to out-shout the autumn wind blowing outside. A game of ping-pong is in noisy progress on the dining-room table, and the twins are making fudge in the kitchen. But I'm alone in my room, tucked up on my chaise longue, for an hour of quiet reading, and I unconsciously let my mind wander to the Furnishings of my room.

Argue With Mary? NO USE!

IT ALL started when we fell heir to the little house on the corner. Before that, my Saturdays and holidays had been one continual round of golf. Oh, of course, Mary had talked a lot about a back-yard garden and all the things that she was going to wheedle me into building for it, if and when we were fortunate enough to have a home of our own, but that time seemed such a long way off that I didn't take her very seriously.

Smooth, Simple, and Cellophane

WHY sigh for the shimmering lustrous effects seen these days in the smart shops and over at Mrs. Van Smythes? Clever folks are now busy making these modern touches for their own. homes. From the crystal-clear rib-bons of Cellophane cellulose film it's easy to fashion all sorts of gay and useful articles.

THE MAN NEXT DOOR

We're all a trifle primitive, a bit superstitious. When we hang a new calendar on the wall we feel somewhat refreshed, a little re-born, as if we had just taken a shower bath and put on clean linen, and maybe a brand new necktie.

Communities Are Invited!

LEISURE! The very word gives one such a sleek, top-hat, pearls-and-sables feeling, doesn't it?

Manly Menus

IF THERE is a better and tastier meal for a man than a portly and commodious crock of Boston baked beans, fresh cucumber pickle, hot brown bread chock-full of plump raisins, cole slaw perhaps, and apple pie with pungent yellow cheese-- I'd like to hear about it.

AT HOME IN JANUARY

DINING, this gay, blustering month, is a matter of taste. You can figure that it's just the time to use up the old stuff --ideas and groceries. Or you can look at it as a brand new event, no end exciting, fairly bulging with notions for adding zippy flavors, funny new textures, surprising combinations to the bill of fare.

Practical and Pert

A TOAST to dinner preparations that zip along smoothly, and to the cook who sings as she works! And a toast to the lustrous new metals that make gleaming utensils, to the pottery accessories so cheerful and trig, to the widgets and gadgets of paper, rubber, glass, and wood-- each a deal of help with the adventures of meal-making.

Practical and Pert

Co-operating With Better Homes & Gardens

OUR GUARANTEE TO YOU

How Much Do We Know About The Things We Buy?

IT'S PLAIN, of course, that the better informed you and I are about the things we buy for our homes and families, the greater the satisfaction we will get from using them. A knowledge of quality, probable durability, adaptability, and usability likewise helps us to buy economically.

Coat-Hanger Trellis

"IT'S high time," I remarked to John, as I pinched back another ten- dril of the vine, "that something be done about this! When are you going to make that trellis you promised mer"

Undersea Gardening

WEARY of winter bouquets and window-garden plants? Then try a bit of undersea gar-dening. The bleak winds and slithering sleet of January inspire us to create tropical water gardens indoors. Here's the way to do it:

ALONG THE GARDEN PATH

A GREENHOUSE has always had particular fascination for me. A little care given to the ventilation, watering, and heating, morning and night, is all it needs. It would be such a joy to have a larger collection of growing plants. Then, too, I enjoy the mingled smells of the flowers and the soil.